UBC iSchool Administrative Assistant Jerry He
Those who have been at iSchool from January 2022 onwards will be familiar with all the work that Administrative Assistant Jerry He does for UBC iSchool. From HR and finance duties to acting as Director Dr. Erik Kwakkel’s assistant, Jerry helps keep UBC iSchool running at smooth sailing.
Born in Toishan, China, Jerry came to Vancouver after high school to pursue post-secondary education. He initially took coursework at Langara College before transferring to UBC, and graduated in 2021 with a major in mathematics and a minor in computer science. During his time as an UBC student, Jerry participated in the co-op program, and worked at various UBC faculties and departments before coming to the iSchool in January 2022 after he graduated.
Jerry describes his responsibilities as Administrative Assistant as falling primarily into two categories: helping faculty and staff with human resources and finance, and helping Director Dr. Erik Kwakkel with administrative tasks. With human resources and finance duties, Jerry is in charge of financial reimbursements, onboarding new hires, and answering any questions that faculty and staff have within those realms. Jerry also helps Director Dr. Erik Kwakkel with administrative tasks, from scheduling meetings and taking meeting minutes, to data processing. Jerry’s warm personality and detail-oriented work ethic is what helps him excel at his job, Such was evident, for example, in his work for UBC iSchool’s external review process in the academic year 2022-23. Not only has he been scheduling meetings for everyone involved in the process, but Jerry has also been in charge of gathering and categorizing relevant data, turning it all into graphs and charts to best represent the data. According to Jerry, this is where his mathematics major and previous UBC administrative work experience comes into play despite the external review being a new experience for him.
Reflecting on his time at iSchool thus far, Jerry notes that a lot of changes have happened since he has arrived. When Jerry started as Administrative Assistant in January 2022, he spent his first month working from home due to COVID-19 lockdown measures. He has also seen staffing and faculty changes occur, but remarks that everyone at iSchool has been helpful throughout the changes and as iSchool has become increasingly in-person again.
When he is not at work, Jerry likes to stay active. His favourite place on campus was the ARC gym when he was a student, laughing as he reminisces on how affordable the student pass was. Jerry is also a huge fan of video games, recently branching out from his favourite Nintendo games to play the God of War franchise on PlayStation 5.
